Carbon offsets are a voluntary penance mediated by an organization that promises to promote good elsewhere to make up for climate vice, much like indulgences paid to the church before the reformation. Essentially it's paying for the right to do wrong.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
Bill Gates now owns almost 242,000 acres of the continguous USA. This map shows that area as a rectangle that can be dragged.Lots of articles on this are full of "4D chess" speculations about climate change blah blah, but the real reason for this seems to be very simple: "just to collect rent."
Most of us imagine farmers tilling the soil that has been in their families for generations. But many farmers lease at least some of the land they cultivate. According to Bruce Sherrick, a professor of agricultural economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, about 60 percent of row-crop farmland in the Midwest is leased. The landowners can include investors like Gates.
"Farmland has had a remarkably consistent ability to hedge against inflation," Sherrick says. And it tends to be "negatively correlated" against other investments, he adds: If the stock market is going down, the return on farmland is likely to be going up.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
